For Hussein's government, though, Monday's strike was so painful that his information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, flatly denied it had taken place-even as journalists asking him questions watched fighting rage just across the Tigris.

"There is not any American presence or troops in the heart of the capital, at all," he said at a news conference on a roof of the Palestine Meridien Hotel. "The soldiers of Saddam Hussein gave them a great lesson that history will not forget."

As he spoke, shelling, tank rounds and machine-gun fire reverberated relentlessly from the Republican Palace across the river-well within sight of the hotel. Smiling, Sahhaf never flinched at the explosions. At one point, he even challenged U.S. troops "to double such operations" and promised that Iraqi forces would "slaughter them and bury them in Iraq."

"Let me reassure you that Baghdad is very secure, safe and in control," he said.
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